DHS is CORRUPT

DHS with their lawyers, the state-contracted lawyer for each child and each parent(s), each DHS staff person at every level, each child psychologist (often more than one is on a case), each child therapist (more than one can be involved), and the judge overseeing the case---they are all in the corruption together. Kids continually get shuffled through the door with mounds of bureaucratic red tape, endless meetings that DHS arranges, and the kids and their families suffer.

Why?

It's all about money and power when DHS pulls strings and they put kids in what often becomes dangerous situations (you name it--foster parents not thoroughly checked out, poor communications between DHS and their "handlers" and the parent(s), DHS staffers not on the same page as they "develop a case plan", not giving parent(s) a chance to get their child(ren) back if they've successfully gone through parenting and/or substance abuse class, kids sent of the country when there's family here, or left with an immature or government-dependent foster parent, and the list goes on and on.

Time goes by quickly as the kids languish in this inept system, all the "handlers" of the child above get their paychecks from the state, and the Oregon taxpayers are given an enormous bill as a result of the corruption over at DHS's Children's Services. DHS deliberately stretches out the court cases because of their adamant claim that they are "working the best interest of the child". What THEY perceive to be in the best interest of our children and grandchildren. Do you know that a lot of caseworkers have never raised a child themselves?!

When the director, Richard Wexler, came from the National Center for Child Care Reform in Virginia to Oregon in 2005, he gave excellent input on how Oregon's DHS could start cleaning house and start revamping the organization---eliminating waste, quickly moving on cases, reuniting children with their families, putting an emphasis on kinship care, etc. Well, DHS basically sent him home and did nothing---why? "The funds weren't there to do the job".

Baloney, DHS has millions of dollars to screw up children, disconnect them completely from their relatives, and they have blood on their hands for the many Oregonian foster children who have died while in the system or shortly after as in the case of little Adrianna.
The whole system needs to be dismantled. How many innocent children are going to die because of DHS's mishandling of cases and making kids even more vulnerable because of their "government knows best" thinking. DHS is simply a mirror of government gone bad as we're seeing in Washington DC. It's all about money and power. I hope and pray that BO's stimulus money isn't thrown towards Oregon's DHS.

Just ask a former DHS worker why they quit their job. They will talk since they have witnessed so much corruption, and finally had enough. Rich Rigney, if he's still a DHS caseworker, had his story in this newspaper last November. Check out fightcps.com---stories of real families from all over the nation who DHS tore apart. DHS needs to be brought down. The solution? Families, kinship care, churches, principled adoption agencies, orphanages in a family setting---anything but DHS . Remember, the "Government is not your Daddy"---government corrupts and the children suffer.